The Attorney General this morning withdrew the charge of attempted murder made against Cikku Fenech, 70, of Mosta, over a shooting incident in Mosta in 2003. A trial over alleged attempted murder, due to have started this mroning, may be called off after the Attorney General withdrew the charge.
Francis (Cikku) Fenech, 70 of Mosta, had been accused of the attempted murder of John Pace, 45 of Birkirkara, when he alleged fired in his direction in an incident in May 2003.
But just before his trial was due to start this morning, the Attorney General filed a note to withdraw the accusation.
The remaining charges against Fenech were of firing a weapon near an inhabited area and being in unlawful possession of a weapon.
The defence and the prosecution had a meeting to discuss the situation. When the trial started, Mr Fenech immediately pleaded guilty to the remaining charges.
DESCRIPTION OF SHOOTING INCIDENT
During the compilation of evidence, Mr Fenech had given a detailed and animated description of the shooting incident.
Fenech told the court he had leased the land to lawyer Patrick Spiteri but John Pace had been making use of it over the past two years.
Matters came to a head when Dr Spiteri stopped paying the lease on the land and Fenech told both the lawyer and Pace he wanted his land back.
Fenech explained that he had told Pace that if Dr Spiteri did not pay him he wanted his land back but Pace, on the other hand, had spent a lot of money on the land and did not want to lose the money he had spent.
On the day of the incident he went to his Mosta field at about 1.30 p.m. and as he was putting his dogs in his Land Rover he saw Pace walk past the wall of his field and wondered what he was doing there.
Pace called Fenech to go next to him but Fenech told him to go in through the gate if he wished to speak to him.
Fenech went on to explain that he then saw Pace bend down and jump over the wall and into the field carrying a shotgun.
"I told him he did not need the shotgun to speak to me but he ran towards me with it in his hands. I asked him to get off my land. He then stopped to take aim. I ducked and hid behind a drum and he fired," Fenech said.
"I started shouting for him to stop but then I heard him shout: "I got you. This will be the end of you."
"He kept running towards me and reloaded the gun and I stayed behind the drum. Then I remembered I had a pistol in a box nearby so I grabbed it.
"He fired another two shots at me and I felt them whiz past me and puncture a plastic bucket," Fenech explained as he gestured to show the way the bullets went past him.
Fenech explained that at that point he fired four shots to scare away Pace who ran behind a tree and then out of the field from where he fired another two shots at Fenech.
Pace then hid behind his car and fired yet another shot and before he drove off he told Fenech he would be back that very evening.
(Pace faced separate proceedings in court).